Behavior: From Euphoria to Suicide

Finally home after nearly eight years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, Air Force Captain Edward Alan Brudno beamed joyously as he stepped from a plane in Massachusetts and hugged his wife close. "Words like unbelievable, exciting and unreal perfectly describe the fantastic excitement of being reborn," he exulted. That was 16 weeks ago. A month later Brudno's mood had changed. "I knew the initial euphoria would pass, and it has," he confided to the wife of a fellow P.O.W. "I'm feeling pretty depressed these days." Brudno's despair deepened, and last week he ended his life with an overdose of sleeping...